Friday, July 09, 2010

This last week we headed to Joseph's surgeon's office in Salt Lake for his final visit. Hooray! Joseph had his stitches removed and had his final exam before the doctor declared him healed.

After about a week and a half of sitting around Joseph had enough of the "no physical activity" clause the doctor imposed. I quickly realized that enforcing this rule was useless and had to come up with other "rules" that would at least keep the finger safe in the event of a fall. Such as: "When running, Joseph you may not have anything in your left hand so that if you fall at least you have one hand to stop you before the right hand hits", and "No rock climbing activities", and "when climbing on playground equipment don't use your bad hand to hold on use your left!", and "swimming is out but water guns are alright as long as your splint and ace bandage are on!". Joseph managed to make it through the 6 weeks without having the stitches and skin graphs redone. Truly it was a miracle!

The doctor said his fingernail may take a few years to grow "normally" like his others, although it may be crooked and will probably grow over the top of what is left. It looks as if its already growing but we will have to watch it. Joseph fussed a little while the surgeon was removing the stitches and cutting off scar tissue. This is a good sign as it looks as if his nerves are already coming back. We were worried he wouldn't get the feeling back on the tip but that doesn't look like it will be a problem. The doctor also told him not to do any real rock climbing for at least a year to allow the tissue and nerves to continue to heal completely.

Sponge Bob has officially been retired and now has a place on Joseph's shelves. Hopefully he stays in retirement and never comes out! As soon as we got home from SLC we put our swimsuits on and headed to the pool! We have all been waiting for his stitches to come out. Our goal is to go swimming everyday we can!